Cindy and Kumar celebrate fall fun

UMD homecoming game: Freezing cold and rain can apparently not deter my sister from wanting to watch the Terrapins get beat by UVA. Perhaps not my favorite event of the season, but an adventure nonetheless.

West Wing White House Tour: Pretty great. I saw the Oval Office, the Rose Garden, the Press Room, and Kal Penn giving a personal tour. I touched the wall of the inside of the Oval Office (we couldn't walk into it) just so that I could say that I did. I did.

Apple and pumpkin picking: After another beautiful week spent in the office, I went out in the pouring rain to enjoy my fall over the weekend. And the company I was with made it plenty enjoyable even if the weather was not cooperating. Also contributing to the enjoyable were the 10 pounds of apples, the pumpkin, the fresh bread, the apple cider, and the bbq flavored cheese. Oh and the delicious McDonald's double cheeseburger I ate on the way home.

Charlottesville trip: More uncooperative weather, but Monticello shines even when the clouds are gray. The leaves were SPECTACULAR, the vineyard and brewery tours tasty, and the company fabtab. We also got a front row view of drunk yuppie Halloween while stuck in traffic at midnight on the Key Bridge. Exciting day all around.

FALL FUN!

Click if you dare

The Ten Miles Square spooky underground version.....(kind of)
OOooooo......

It's not my wedding

It's ours. I mean it's Jess's and Will's. Coming up in now just under a year! Which means I am quickly running out of time to convince them that buying a rowhouse and letting me live in the basement is obviously the only way to proceed once Jess moves out. I will pay rent with kitchen cleaning skills and hugs. In the meantime, I no longer have to come up with excuses for spending my evenings looking at wedding blogs on the internet (no I am not imagining any future weddings of my own, I am just getting inspiration for dinner parties...) I can now tell people I'm planning OUR wedding. I mean theirs...

Some fun things that might be featured at the Oct. 2010 event:

This place
A photo booth set up, probably with mustaches
These color and mod type inspirations
Easy going flowers in mix matched vases
It might not work in the space, but string lights are in the idea pool
I get to pick my own black dress. Hmmm
I am making one of these for my hair
and Cupcakes! (ok not those specifically, but I wish)

It's really all about making history

For those who don't know, at the non-profit I work for a great deal of my job is spent promoting the idea of emergency preparedness to cultural institutions across the U.S. Which means I spend a great deal of my day thinking about worst case scenarios for invaluable pieces of cultural heritage, like all of my pictures. Ha! But just you wait - someday, when computers die, someone will be so glad I took so many photos and carefully preserved them all in fireproof boxes so that they can know how people lived in the technological age. I am only kind of being sarcastic there. Seriously, when I worked at the MD State Archives and had to go through people's old family albums looking for pictures of the MD State House, I was so glad when I found what the photographer might have considered just a throwaway shot that included some angle of the building from a certain period in its history that we didn't have documentation of yet. You never know! So someday I will have a fireproof box. For the moment I just have Pioneer albums, a million CD's of images from now deceased computers, and I'm working my way through the piles of old printed photos trying to remember what year they are from. And boy have I uncovered some classics.

Me, cross-eyed at age 1

Lisa stealing the Thompson family birthday show at ages, 6, 4, and 1

Lisa doing it again at 12, 10, and 7

Hardcore

Twin Day, senior year of high school

Prom!

Freshman year of college

Fun!

Fall so far

Despite the rainy weekends, I've been pressing ahead with all my fall enjoyment activities so far. There was a visit to the solar decathlon (see the winning entry here, and a thrilling blog post about one of DC's first "green" buildings here), a very cold and rainy UMD homecoming game, and an even more rainy, though slightly less cold apple and pumpkin picking trip. (more on those later) But in the series of posts of "things I did forever ago that I am just getting around to writing now", my for my first official fall event I went to Denver at the end of September for a quick little work related trip. This was an exciting opportunity as I had never been to Denver, or Colorado, or anywhere on the ground between Chicago and the West Coast. It was neat to be able to see the Rockies from pretty much any vantage point in the city, and the weather there was perfect and fall-like during my stay. The city must have been redeveloped around the same time as Baltimore because its more recent buildings all sort of reminded me of my "hometown" city, but unlike the East Coast its historic properties only date back to the Gold Rush era. Nothing Colonial because there were no Colonials out there; in fact at the time the country was founded we were not totally sure that that place existed. HISTORY IS FASCINATING! I particularly enjoyed my tour of the 1880s era"unsinkable" Molly Brown House (who was actually named Margaret and took private lessons for two years to learn how to yodel at house parties) and the luxurious B&B I stayed in which was built in the same neighborhood in the same time period. It should certainly be mentioned that for the two nights I stayed there I had my own bedroom, bathroom, living room, and full kitchen. I stored an unfinished fountain soda in the fridge so I felt like I was getting the most out of it.

The city also has a fair amount of modern - like the Michael Graves Denver Public Library where we had our (successful!) work meeting, and the LEED Gold rated Museum of Contemporary Art which I visited with the guidance of long time pal and new Denver local Cindy M. She is lucky enough to have a lovely apartment right next to Larimer Square, which was one of historic preservation's biggest early coups. In the 1970's redevelopment in the city threatened to wipe out all that was left of the original Denver that had sprung up around the pan mining businesses in Cherry Creek. After one woman's passionate fight for her city's heritage, a few blocks worth of quality late 19th century properties were saved and are now today a thriving shopping, living, and entertainment district. With lights strung across the street! Why doesn't everyone do that?

Good one Denver.

Previewland

I have seen more movies this past week than ever in my life. Except this summer when I saw Harry Potter like five times in two weeks. But this week it's been different movies (and really only three). But since the weather is pretty gross this weekend, I thought perhaps the internet world would like some suggestions of things to see.

The Informant

Funny, compelling, super well written and definitely Matt Damon's Monster moment.

Zombieland

My brother forced me into seeing it after giving it a solid 10 million stars, and I agree. Totally hilarious, kind of sweet and just scary enough.

and Where the Wild Things Are

It's just like being in the head of a child - sort of surreal. Also it made me cry. But those Henson Workshop costumes and crazy set scenery make it all worth it.

Does have.

Remember how I said I wanted this stuff?

I GOT THIS.

AND THIS.

The bedding is pretty bright for my room and is probably going to warrant a whole wall art rehaul. Whatever I love it. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. And that shirt is my new favorite.

Everyone should get themselves a Jess. (Because that's how I got those things)